


Five Whispers

by afterocean (afterandalasia)



Category: Ocean Series - T. Garcia, Original Work
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Infidelity, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Post-War, Science Fiction, Tragic Romance, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time that Clint met Zairecka, it had been as the sister of his commanding officer, at least until she had held a gun and he had seen the woman beneath. Perhaps as soon as then, he had loved her.</p><p>The second had been his commanding officer's wedding.</p><p>The third had been her engagement.</p><p>The fourth had been her wedding.</p><p>The last was her funeral, and still he wondered if he had seen her more clearly than others that had been around her for many years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Set well beyond any planned novels by T. Garcia, and therefore an absolute post-canon AU.
> 
> (Note: this was also written before Thor came out, so snipers named Clint were not such a part of pop culture!)

In the end, he only saw her five times.

 

 

 

  
  
The first time that Clint saw Zairecka -- in the flesh, of course -- was with the rest of the Blackcoats. Lieutenant Regal had been the one to extend the invitation to the Regal Estates, but they guessed that Zairecka must have mentioned it first, and she greeted them each in turn as if she was the one who had invited them. Her beauty made him breathless, even with the scar she wore on her cheek in that time. But it was some days before he saw her alone, when he was wandering the corridors at night restless and insomniac.  
  
'Can you not sleep?' She had asked from behind him, quite suddenly, and he had whirled to face her.  
  
'No, my lady.'  
  
'I'm sure that you know that my name is Zairecka,' she had replied, then asked whether he had wanted to see the range. He had been uncertain, but she had looked deep into his eyes and asked if he was the sniper, and when he said yes asked whether he found calm behind the scope, when everything was fixed into a neat circle and the body and mind had to work so smoothly together that there was no room for anything else to intrude. He had not been able to say anything but yes. And on the range, behind a beautiful weapon once again, he had realised that she was right.  
  
He had beaten her on the straight sniping, with computerised scopes on a three-mile range, and without scopes, but it was a close thing. No-one had beaten her like that in some five years, she said, and looked irritated at first but then laughed about it. As the stars continued round the sky they had dragged out old-fashioned scopes and taken it in turns to shoot, and that time their abilities had been even. He had commented that she seemed to do well as either half of the team. She had replied that he was clearly too good behind a gun to be wasted elsewhere, and they had sat out and watched the stars for a while and spoken, creeping back to the house as the sun began to lighten the horizon and the rest of the world stirred.  
  
They spoke and shot together most of the other days that fortnight, and when he left she whispered in his ear that he was welcome back at any time, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. The rest of the unit had ribbed him for it mercilessly all the way back to the base, except for the Lieutenant of course.

 

 

 

  
  
The second time he saw her was at Atheniel's wedding. Atheniel was healing from the inside then, the light in him spreading once more, and Jaeda looked nothing short of radiant in her gown. The weather was perfect, the party full and rich, but Clint saw Zairecka walking away from the crowds and disappearing into the garden. On a whim he followed her into the maze; she was pale once more, the scar all but faded now, and there was a weariness in her red eyes that not even the most perfect of makeup could hide.  
  
They snatched but one conversation, hidden, about where the last couple of years had been. He took her hand and held it for a while, not commenting on how cold her skin felt, and she held tightly to him in return.  
  
'I will most likely be engaged soon as well,' she had said.  
  
'I am happy for you,' he had lied.  
  
Which was when the call had come up for everyone to gather for the cutting of the cake, and they had parted again. But the next day, as the entire Regal family - now one larger - said goodbye to each retreating guest in turn, Atheniel had embraced him to wish him well, and then Zairecka had shaken his hand and simply whispered 'I am sorry'.

 

 

 

  
  
The third time he saw her was the promised engagement, where she looked fey and beautiful in her gown and her young Captain fiancé looked suitably dashing for the occasion. She did not talk so much in front of him, though she would look on him adoringly from time to time. Their engagement was the talk of the Empire, and the celebration that accompanied it called, of course, for the reunited Blackcoats once again.  
  
Her husband-to-be was glad to meet them all, spoke highly of them, and engaged them in conversation for as long as he could manage throughout the evening until Zairecka led him away to speak to other guests as well. She met the eyes of some of the other guests, but not Clint's.  
  
At one point he saw her try to whisper in her fiancé's ear, but it seemed that the man did not hear it. That was the only time he saw clouds in her eyes that night.

 

 

 

  
  
The fourth time that they met was at her wedding. Still the Regal Estates, but this time there was a ceremony to be held in the chapel, a parade of swords held aloft by the Blackcoats for the bride and groom to pass beneath, and an afternoon dance and dinner in the warm September sun. She was just shy of twenty-five by then. But as in the early evening she excused herself for a short while and went back into the house, Clint followed her, deliberately, catching her by the arm and before she could protest pulling her into one of the empty rooms.  
  
'Do you love him?' he had said. He hadn't known before the words left him that he wanted to ask them.  
  
'The Regal Heir loves him,' she replied.  
  
It had been enough. He kissed her, hungrily, fiercely, and she gasped and tightened her hand on his wrist but kissed him in return. The tears ran down both their faces as he pressed her up against the wall, clinging to her, the cold of her body beneath the beautiful white silk gown, the jasmine-scented waves of her hair tumbling around both of their faces. A breeze had rattled at the house as he kissed her neck, tasting her unperfumed skin, and she gasped and bit her lip and then suddenly they were fumbling with clothes, mouth reaching for mouth, hands for zippers and buttons and ties, and in the end her skirt was still around her waist as he took her, her hands in his hair, trembling with coiled muscles and biting his lower lip in something painfully close to a kiss still. There was no grace, no elegance, though he doubted that she was a virgin still and he had experience enough that it should have been more, but there was a fierce desperation in them both as his hands slipped on the smooth skin of her thighs and she wrapped herself around him, hips thrusting to meet his and breath ragged in her throat until, lips clamped shut and muffled against his skin, she whimpered as she came and he slowed his movements, more holding her now and kissing her still, until he could hold back no longer and met his own release within her. They had clung to the moment a little longer, even as the light from the windows dimmed and the sound of rain began in the far distance, dragging the other guests inside, then Zairecka Regal had faded and he had not been able to hold the Regal Heir.  
  
She had smoothed her dress and he had made himself presentable again, and she had bathed her face and straightened her hair and returned to the party with a laugh on her lips and god knew what in her heart. Clint had retired to his room, though, and drunk what alcohol was there and slept poorly, waking to tears on his pillow and the sound of laughter and merriment still downstairs. And the next day, as the celebrations continued, she had passed him only once and in that moment only managed a brief whisper to him.  
  
'They would kill us if they knew.'  
  
And he knew the Regal Heir had risen again.

 

 

 

  
  
The last time he saw her was not for many years. He wished, later, that he had found the words to describe the way that she had lived: fast and bright and beautiful and desolate, like some distant star shining against the blackness of the deep sky. But perhaps trying to wrap her up in such a trite tangle of words would have been inappropriate, and it was better to remember her as he had seen her, in those snippets of time wrapped in whispers that had passed between the two of them. In the nights she had appeared to him again in that way, laughing in the night air with a rifle in her hand or surrounded in soft lights at her engagement or against him, skin on skin, a moment that should never have been. A moment with a penalty of death upon it that had killed both of them in an instant.  
  
There were more to carry the Regal name now. Not just Atheniel, stern-faced and sombre and looking ever more like his father, with Jaeda at his side and their sons. Not just Micah and Melanie either, through Clint could not bring himself to look upon their faces and their tears in the knowledge that they had outlived their daughter. And not just Zairecka's husband, Colonel now, silver beginning to appear in his hair and belying the years he had held on her. No, Zairecka had not left the world unmarked: a daughter and two sons outlasted her, with all her fire and her looks wrapped up but tempered. Perhaps she, and not her father, had been the last of the Regals meant for the war years, and in the peace she had burnt herself up for lack of oil to feed the wick.  
  
It should have been raining. It was trying to, but here, just here, there was a clear area in the sky; Clint suspected that it was the daughter. She of all looked the most alike, of course, with Caira-red eyes still, glossy brown-black hair and a trembling, desperate pride that was holding back the tears and the rain both together. As the eldest she spoke, supported her father as he did the same, then bowed her head as the coffin was lain into the ground.  
  
He had not been one of the company of soldiers who had fired the salutes for her. Even if it was her brother who had been the war hero, she had somehow been the warchild, born with fire and gunsmoke in her veins. He had heard that the daughter was the same.  
  
It was later that evening when he had approached the young woman. He had hidden himself in the army for the twenty-six years that had passed, holding himself ever more tightly inside a shell of solitude and stern appearance, and praying for dreamless oblivion as he slept.  
  
'Staff Sergeant,' she had said. 'I am honoured to meet you. My mother speaks highly of you.'  
  
There was tremble enough in her voice to know that she had realised what she had said immediately after it had left her lips. Tenses were such fickle things.  
  
'Likewise, Miss Regal,' he had replied.  
  
'Please,' she had said. 'Call me Katherine.'  
  
She was twenty-five, he knew. Born so soon after her parents had been married that it had been a cause for exceptional celebration -- if a few whispers as well. Ran miles each morning, could snipe at well over three miles, or beat either one of her brothers in a fight. But she was less defined by fighting, at least, than her mother had been. Clint had nodded in acceptance of the name, but only then had he dared to meet her eyes, and in the shape of her face he had seen enough to know.  
  
But it did not matter, of course. Not with the Regal to her name.  
  
They had talked for a while, then he had taken his leave and spoken to her brothers in the same manner. He never asked whether she knew as well. Coming from Zairecka, she did not need to know.


End file.
